Portrait: Marzia Donzelli, MAD

Established in 2007 by Donzelli (S.A.S.), MAD is a fashion design company specialising in clothing and fashion accessories for women, which express passion for the sea, the sun, and the wild and unspoiled charm of Sicily’s land.

Production is based around the creative headquarter in Sicily and comprises a national network of professionals, who have been selected for their distinguished expertise in fashion production. The aim of this setup has been to create a nimble and flexible production model, focused on quality and innovation. The open dialogue with a skilled network of experts and consultants rooted deeply in the Italian fashion industry, it also allowed MAD to build up intellectual capital very quickly and then raise its profile as a key player of the industry.

TCBL’s Maria Adele Cipolla spoke with Marzia Donzelli, the founder, about how TCBL has helped her company.

“At the beginning I saw TCBL as an opportunity to enhance my knowledge of the T&C sector and find opportunities for my business. Later, I realised that all the input coming from the network made me reflect upon my business model and the way I produce clothes. What I like is to be part of a closed user group that will test innovative machines and software in a network of labs. It’s really an opportunity to work together with TCBL partners to co-design innovation services that best fit for businesses like mine. Sometimes my colleagues and I regret that innovation is far from Sicily and we don’t have enough power to design services suitable for us.”

“A good example for this is what we are doing with digital pattern making and, in particular, the MacroGen PatternMaker software suite. Starting from this software made available for free by the local lab, Arca Textile Lab, I’m testing it with my real models and then go into production organization totally based on TCBL associates.”

“It is a bit too early to say”, says founder Marzia Donzelli, “but tests in the network with software such as Macrogen are promising and could potentially lead to a different business model or different production system for the brand”.

Asked about future scenarios, she responded: “I think that the next few year will bring about a market revolution in the clothing sector and a small brands like mine need to start adapting and be informed now. What I hope for my brand is to keep on growing and maybe produce my clothes in Sicily or with the help of the TCBL network, developing partnerships, be informed, and testing cutting edge technology impossible to reach for my small brand on my own.”